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21 November 2010

New Zealand and adoption

Since this post, I still encounter people and organisations who refuse to see the truth regarding this Act and whilst actively promoting this institution of loss (aka adoption), they are also actively misleading unsuspecting expectant mothers and others about the truth of OPEN adoption and how it works in New Zealand.

As in the USA, New Zealand purports to practice open adoption. However, also like the USA, this is all a falsehood given our laws do NOT support this. It is merely a method to encourage more mothers to hand over their children. You see, the law itself is governed, dictated if you like, by the Adoption Act. This Act as I have already posted is from 1955 which was during the peak era of adoption; as in the days they literally stole children from their mothers to fulfill the demand for babies and to punish the mothers for daring to be, well, a normal human being!

Since this era, this Act has not changed. For the sake of repeating myself , I will give you the run down of what this really means.

Adoptions in New Zealand are legally closed. There is no legal framework in this country to support an open system. In fact, as far as the law is concerned, adoption is practically the same now as it was 55 years ago! The term "open" adoption is merely just that; a term. To enter into an open adoption agreement, the two parties discuss what they would like i.e. visits, letters, photos etc and then the parties sign a piece of paper which outlines this discussion and it is placed on the Social Department's file for that case. And you know what? It means absolutely nothing. It carries no weight. When the adopters have claimed the child and decide they don't want to honour their verbal agreement and empty promises, there is nothing in the Law to prevent them from completely closing the adoption. I know this because it happened to me when I first lost my child and I have heard from other mothers who this has happened to.

I recently contacted a certain pro-adoption website based in (Christchurch) New Zealand regarding the information they have on their website about Open Adoptions, alerting them to the fact their information is indeed incorrect. They seem to believe that because they "know" some people who have "successful" "open" adoptions then open adoption is alive and well. Not true. They seem to feel they can speak for the law. Again, not true. An article in the "Sunday Star Times" a couple of months ago also claimed New Zealand has moved with the times in terms of adoption; that it has embraced 'openness' and moved away from the closed system.

Again though, while it might sound good on paper, this is again just 'wishful' thinking. These people who continually claim New Zealand's adoption system operates with a scheme that is not legal are dangerous.

If you are a mother facing an unplanned pregnancy in New Zealand and you are exploring your options please do not be fooled by wolves dressed in sheep's clothing. As a young, scared and vulnerable mother, I approached a woman in a crisis pregnancy centre for help. At this point, I wanted and intended to raise my baby, as is natural. Adoption had not entered my head. This so called counsellor was the first to suggest adoption to me. But she did not stop there. An adopter herself, her agenda became clear after the damage had been done. She started on me with threats of losing my daughter very early in the piece; in fact barely days after I discovered I was pregnant and facing anger from my family, in the middle of a real crisis, I turned to her for help. I was terrified. And she saw this as an opportunity to pounce and work me over.

If you are wondering what your options are, my suggestion is first look at raising your child. If you do decide to go the route of adoption (which from your child's point of view is probably not in his/her best interests unless you are an abusive drug addicted person which means you wouldn't be thinking about this clearly), please be aware that until our Act changes to be updated with current 'views', open adoption does not actually exist in New Zealand. Yes, sure you will be told it does and my warnings will be dismissed however, please be aware that legally, you do not have the right to have contact with your child, the child you carried and loved, once the adoption is done. Actually, the minute you sign a consent form, your child will be as if you had never known him or her. Adoption is a legal guillotine that severs you from your child and your child from you. There is no revocation period in New Zealand law. And if you are coerced into signing that piece of paper which is very possible given certain agendas, it will be sadly, your tough luck. Because the law relies on the Act at the end of the day despite the knowledge that adoption is not in a child's best interests OR welfare.

Your child's birth certificate, the one they are born with, will be locked away and a new one will be penned listing the adopters as YOUR child's original parents; as if THEY had given birth to them. From now on, in the eyes of the law, you will be a stranger to him or her. Adoption brutally strips all past, history and identity from a person. These are the facts you will not be told. The facts no one wants you to know.

Adoption is not a fairy tale. It is not a happy ever after story. It is a manipulation of nature. Nature did not create adoption. It is an institution created by man to get what he wanted. Some misinformed people think that because adoption was practiced in ancient days this makes it okay. This has to be some of the dumbest logic around because slavery was also practiced in ancient times and this was eventually outlawed relatively recently. So no, just because the ancient civilisations practiced a form of adoption (not even the current barbaric form of infant adoption) does not mean it is natural or valid. It is just something they did.

Adoption is wrong. Really. Who in their right mind can seriously be okay with CAUSING loss and trauma? Who can be okay with the act of severing a child from their family tree? Adoption today has become such a huge industry and an entitlement in the minds of society that there has been a massive disconnect from morals and good values of preserving families. Indeed, there are those in adoption who feel they shouldn't help preserve families and are not interested in altruism at all. They happily wait for the collapse of families and eagerly take children with open arms with very little thought, if any for the families this child actually comes from.

Adoption is a lie. It seeks to create a falsehood out of a person's life by stating they are born to strangers. Sure, these people are not strangers as the child grows but it doesn't change the fact that those adopting really are nothing but strangers. While illusions of grandeur run rampant in a PAP's mind about how they always knew this would be "their" child and how this child "grew" in their heart (a biological impossibility and quite frankly, ridiculous), this baby is thinking "who the hell are you and where is my mummy?"

So please, do not be fooled by the lovey dovey videos placed on certain websites about how adopters and first families can be one big happy family. That this is not a loss but a chance for your child to have this that and the other. This is a fallacy as I have heard many adopters state they never wanted an extended family, just a child. Adopters don't really care about YOU, they just want your baby.

All your child needs is their mother to stand up and take responsibility for her life. Your child doesn't need a flash house, car, toys. Millions of children the world over do just fine without those things. They are a materialistic desire. Plenty of mothers continue to study, work, travel as a single mother. Yes, it is hard but so what? Life IS hard. And if you think handing your baby over to strangers makes it any easier, please, that is just another pandora's box and a whole lot of hard on a totally different plain.

So now you know the hard facts, the ones those in government agencies and organisations/counselling centres will not give you. Sure, this might seem awful and harsh but I wish someone had laid this all out for me when I was pregnant. I wish someone had pulled me up, slapped me and brought me out of the brainwashed induced fog I was in and told me I could do it. That I wasn't selfish for wanting to raise my child; that loving my child did not equate with abandoning her. But I was not that lucky. I do not want to see more stories like mine and it hurts to see more women being lied to about a system that does not exist.

New Zealand operates under a barbaric act. True, it is merely a law but it is a law with no thought for a mother and her child. It is engineered entirely to get children adopted, for the sake of those adopting. The child and the mother are not relevant to this act. We don't need JUST a change in our Act, we need an Inquiry into all the practises this Act has allowed. We need redress to all the families who have been maimed by this ancient legislation. If New Zealand really wants to move with the times then an Inquiry will be called and from that, a new Act, if any at all, can be borne.

About Me

My name is Myst and I am the mother of three children, one whom I lost to forced adoption in New Zealand in 1998. I use this blog to share my story so others may be better informed of adoption practises in New Zealand and not lose their child in the same way I did.

Some quotes I love...

"This story had its beginnings in a wrongful belief that women could be separated from their babies and it would all be for the best. Instead, these churches and charities, families, medical staff and bureaucrats struck at the most primal and sacred bond there is - the bond between a mother and her baby"

"How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on when in your heart, you begin to understand there is no going back? There are some things time cannot mend, some hurts that go to deep... that have taken hold."- Frodo, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

“Many people, especially ignorant people, want to punish you for speaking the truth, for being correct, for being you. Never apologise for being correct, or for being years ahead of your time. If you are right and you know it, speak your mind. Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is still the truth.”-Gandhi

“Man has the capacity to pass on from generation to generation the wrongs that he has suffered whether they are overt or covert wrongs. And there is a whole generation of people who have suffered from the inhumanity of our social service system because they were poor, because they were helpless, because they were young, because they had no advocates, because they were treated unjustly, because they were treated as though they had wronged people by having a child. We now have to call those social service systems to task.”- Family Involvement ‘Editorial’ John L. Brown No 5 (1977):1

"Regrettably, in many cases, the emphasis has changed from the desire to provide a needy child with a home, to that of providing a needy parent with a child. As a result, a whole industry has grown, generating millions of dollars of revenue each year..."- Commission on Human Rights, resolution 2002/92; E/CN/2002/79; page 25

"Hope is like a bird that senses dawn and carefully starts to sing while it is still dark."- Author unknown

“When a baby is born, a mother is born”-Adapted from a quote by Alice Meynell

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."-Martin Luther King, Jr.

“A mother’s love endures through all; in good repute, in bad repute, in the face of the world’s condemnation, a mother still loves on.”-Washington Irving

“Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness”-Amnesty International

“There is in this cold and hollow world no fount of deep, strong deathless love save that within a mother’s heart.”-Felicia D. Hemans

"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all."-Dale Carnegie

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”Psalm 139:13, 14

“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up. “-Anne Lamott

“No language can express the power and beauty and heroism and majesty of a mother’s love. It shrinks not where man cowers, and grows stronger where man faints, and over the wastes of worldly fortune sends the radiance of quenchless fidelity like a star in heaven.”-E.H. Chapin